Searching for Data Quality at Lowe's - Consistent Brands
Lowe's recently announced new validations designed to improve the quality and consistency of brand information in Lowe's systems including Lowes.com. Fortunately Sync/PDI makes it easy for vendors to check that their brand information adheres to the new Lowe's rules.
With this new initiative Lowe's will be ensuring that the vendor's brand field is consistent spelling, punctuation, and any abbreviations. Lowe's now has a master list of valid "brands" and will fail new or changed listings if the brand is not on the master list.
Checking the brand values in your GDSN data is easy. Just go to Aligntrac's Sync/PDI Search Screen and view the Brand search criteria the dropdown has a complete list of all the brand values contained in your data. It is quick to identify any typos or inconsistency in the brands you have specified, and of course all you need to do is click "search" to get a list of those GTIN's that you need to correct.
Vendors need to ensure that their Brands are specified exactly as defined on the Lowe's maintained list of valid brands. If your Brands are not on the list then you need to request that Lowe's add your Brands to the Lowe's maintained list BEFORE you publish your items to Lowe's.
The Lowe's maintained list of valid brands and the procedure to add brands are on the LowesLink web site - www.loweslink.com/pubdocuments/pcmBM_Introduction.pdf.